Everdeep
The Everdeep is an underground feudal kingdom home to the Dark Elves and Deep Gnomes. Its capital is Narozanan, city of the Fell Lords. Although the entirety of the Everdeep is claimed by the Tal'Drodar, much of it is untamed and hosts terrible beasts and warring tribes of primitive creatures. Its vast uncharted tunnel network is connected to many caves throughout Norospire, but the primary entrance is The Gate of Everdeep found between Mal'aran and Glimmerglade. Everdeep is the only kingdom to openly support warlock-craft. The current ruler is High Lady Kisharza. History The Schism When the elves, or the Tel'Quessir (People of Quessira) as they call themselves, arrived in Norospire from The Fey, they were panicked by their new mortal lives. These beings who had spent their immortal existence in a universe without rules now had to obey physics and contend with reality. The People and their gnomish travel companions debated upon their ships from the Fey how they should react, what they should do in the face of this terrifying condition they found themselves in. This debate lasted weeks, while Queen Quessira managed to preserve peace and keep the various sides from coming to blows. The three main proposed courses of action were as thus: Return to the ways of the Eladrin and Gwynwra in the hopes that they will receive mercy and be allowed to ascend once more to immortality, embrace the new reality as the order that Quessira sought all along and rejoice in victory, or seek a new source of power even greater than the arcane in the form of warlock-craft. This last option was suggested by Lord Maelon of the Blevan clan. He had made contact with the spider demon Arakruth who promised an art of magic greater than even that which the Eladrin wielded. Maelon argued that the elves should no longer look back at their past but look forward to an even brighter future. He gained quite the following, especially among the younger elves, but Quessira sensed there was some dark intent behind the whisperings of Arakruth. When the followers of Maelon began to grow more and more in number, the Queen became frightened and banished the lord from the debate. Maelon refused to leave by command of Quessira as he claimed she lost her authority when she lost the war and got them exiled. Lord Alun Ninian then stepped forward and challenged Maelon to a duel to determine if he should leave or stay. In the ensuing battle Alun defeated Maelon but the sore loser murdered his opponent when his back was turned to receive the Queen's blessing as victor. Furious, Maelon then struck down Quessira herself with his sword and sparked a great battle between the three sides. Maelon himself and his closest ally, his brother Maredud, left the battle early and retreated to the south with their followers (most of them elves, but also the odd curious gnome). The Second Betrayal Following the whispers of his new Queen, Aarakruth, Maelon found the entrance to Everdeep and built the great city of Narozanan. There, in the darkness of that buried city, the Tal'Drodar (elvish for traitor people) sealed their pact with Arakruth. As so many elves joined the demon queen's pact, her power grew immensely. Being bound to such a great demon pulled the Tal'Drodar deeper into shadow each day until their skin turned first a pale white and then an ashen grey. This is why the Valamari referred to the Tal'Drodar as Dark Elves (another common word for them is Drow, a shortened form of Tal'Drodar). Their corruption had only just began when a second betrayal occurred. Maredud's lover, Lady Saeth Maleri, craved Maelon's seat of power as High Lady of Narozanan. She convinced Maredud to join her and kill his brother so the two could take the throne for themselves. Arakruth smiled to see such frequency, granting the two lovers even more power. Realizing now how their demonic lady worked, Saeth slew her own husband and gained the most Infernal Magic in all of Everdeep. Ever since that second slaying of kin, the under-kingdom has been engaged in a constant dance of power and betrayal as the dark elves violently compete for demonic favor. They have oft been compared to the Gantales or the Valamari Tieflings of old for their obsession with power and their willingness to use any means available to attain it. Those dark elves who reach the height of warlock power become the Driders, terrible beings that resemble their evil spider queen in a new twisted arachnid shape. The Deep Wars The drow expanded more and more into the tunnels of the Everdeep, building towns and fortresses as they spread. They were opposed in their expansion by monsters innumerable, many which are now believed to be extinct. But many more were enslaved by the dark elves, namely the goblins and saurians which are used as servants and mounts respectively. The Deep Wars were at one point briefly interrupted and set back by the reign of the dragon lords whose terror even spread to the Everdeep. Drow know this time as the Humiliation, as they were made slaves despite their superior blood. The greatest of these Deep Wars was that fought against the demon Izrazis, a terrible queen of undeath who rivals Arakruth. Her ghoulish armies battled for years against the dark elves but were ultimately sent fleeing into the darkest depths of the Everdeep by the Tal'Drodar. It was during these conflicts that the dark elf assassin order of Narduk-Asir (Black Eye) was formed. These fierce assassins were originally in service to the High Ruler of Narozanan but have since become an independent organization. Drow may hire the Narduk-asir to remove rivals and ascend the ranks of society. The Terrors During the reign of High Lady Zimudaxa, who had ascended by the dark elf tradition of slaying the previous ruler, the dark elves declared their quest of destruction on the elves of the surface. They saw these elves as weak, calling them Eshtar-Mut (Deep Speech for Slave-Heart), and in the cult of Arakruth the weak existed to be dominated by the strong. Parties of Dark Elf hunters ventured into High Elf and Wood Elf lands to capture their enemies as slaves. This time is remembered by its victims as The Terrors. Elves would be tortured till their sanity was broken and then forced to serve the Drow as their servants. It was a huge insult to the proud elven peoples. Yet, as the Valamari Empire spread into the east of the mainland, the cities and order they brought with them made it difficult for dark elves to move above ground. It seemed the eyes of the Valamari legions and paladin orders were everywhere and no Drow Lord or Lady dared risk war with such a mighty force. So the dark elves retreated back to the Ever Deep where they were safe, ending The Terrors. The Illumination While fighting in The Terrors, a dark elf named Siduri was captured by Valamari paladins. She was thrown in a prison in Springhaven and interrogated by clerics for information on the Everdeep. At first, she yielded nothing. But soon the torture became too much to bear and she began to give up small bits of information. As she did, the clerics eased on the torture, fed her more often and began to speak with her about religion. They were shocked by the cruel teachings of Siduri's people but their leader, Father Harma, held them back from taking their disgust out on her. He viewed her as a victim of a harsh society and instead taught her of the love of the Valamari gods. She became interested in his teachings and bit by bit was converted to The Faith. Siduri became the first Dark Elf (in fact the first elf) cleric. Siduri eventually returned to Narozanan with the message of Marpholones on her lips. She knew very well that she could be executed for teaching The Faith in her home city but did so anyway, so strong was her conviction to her new religion. When word spread, many drow actually converted. This time was called the Illumination of Everdeep. Especially the Eshtar Caste became filled with religious zeal. This led to a slave uprising against the warlock lords which was spearheaded by Siduri herself. However, the revolt ultimately failed. Mother Siduri was captured by the Fell Host and thrown into a dungeon to be tortured once more. Yet this time, it wasn't information her captors were after: it was the denouncing of the church. The High Lord realized that if he killed Siduri, he would make a martyr and only cause further revolt. So he caused unthinkable pain to the young priestess in the hopes that she would eventually denounce her religion and prove that she was simply a weak willed Eshtar-Mut who was blown to different religions by captors just as easily as a leaf is blown in the wind. Yet she did not, in fact she held true to The Faith for three years of terrible torture. Each time she was brought to the town square to denounce Marpholones and His children, she would simply stare unblinking into the High Lord's eyes, silent. By the end of her life, Siduri wasn't recognizable and was described by her torturers (who later converted to The Faith) as appearing like a ghoul of Izrazis. The Taram-Uram Rebellion A dark elf settlement far from the capital, called Taram-Uram, has recently rose in opposition to the High Lady, as is common in dark elf politics. Its Lord, Arakzer, seeks to take the throne from Kisharza. He has proclaimed himself as the new High Lord and plunged the Everdeep into civil war. The Slave Hunters Now, with the fall of the Empire, Dark Elf slavers have once again returned to the surface. Raids from the Everdeep hit human towns unexpectedly and disappear back into caves as quickly as they appeared. They rarely take elves anymore as their defenses are greater than the humans and they also take longer to break. Barbarians are preferred targets as they don't build walls. People Of Narozanan And Its Settlements The population of Narozanan is a majority of Dark Elves, but the lower castes also include other races. Goblins and Deep Gnomes are the most common of these. Deep Gnomes are those gnomes who joined the Tal'Drodar in their betrayal of the elf-folk, and are the only gnomes to remain with an elven people post schism. Dark Elves and their Deep Gnome kin are all either very dark grey skinned or pale white skinned. The pale skinned and dark skinned drow are descended from noble Houses associated with Saeth and Maelon respectively, leading to some rivalry between the groups. However, dark elves are in constant bloody competition over individualistic power anyway, so bloodlines hardly matter. Dark Elves abandoned the elven tongue long ago, preferring Deep Speech, the language of the foul things that crawl beneath the ground. It was taught to them by Arakruth the Poisonous herself. Drow are arrogant, ambitious, sadistic, treacherous and hedonistic. From birth, drow are taught they are superior to other races and should crush those beneath them. Children who resist and show kindness or love are brutally punished, so as to beat the instinct for cruelty into them. It was important to recognize that the drow race's evil isn't of inherent nature. Unlike orcs, for example, who suffer from an inherent drive towards war, elves like drow chose by themselves to turn their culture into what it became, leading to a race of emotionally stunted people, with a tenuous grasp on sanity and scarred mentalities among which relatively undamaged minds are considered abnormal. Luckily for the dark elves wishing to flee their evil society, their similarity to elves gives them a comparatively easy time to be accepted into communities on the surface. Dark elves are hedonists. They love beautiful things and surround themselves with what they consider beautiful and generally don’t pay attention to how much it costs them. This also extends to their behavior. Drow generally believe they are entitled to do whatever they want whenever they want to do it. They often partake of lavish revels, indulging in the most pleasurable of activities, including long nights of dinner, drinking and sex. Some drow are fond of dances, including the frenzied nedeiza competition or the yliyitrii, a formal dance sometimes involving costumes. Drow believe themselves to be the apex creature. Their treatment towards members of other races runs the entire gamut from pets, slaves to grudgingly respected partners when they prove themselves a political or military match for them, though never equals in their minds. Most dark elves share a hatred of all other races, especially surface races, the objects of true hatred are the humans and the surface elves. It is the only thing that unites them as a species, leading them to yearn for a return to the surface that would defeat the surface elves. Arakruth’s dogma mandates to recognize female drow as more valuable than male ones, even further than the extent to which this is true in Eladrin society. This gives female drow practically all power in the theocratic society of drow and they are also less likely to be sacrificed than males. Males who hope to find any place of power in society often resort to ends as treacherous as the women that rule the drow, hoping to perhaps win a coveted place as the mate of a powerful matron mother. Women also frequently engage in sexual relations with each other, while homosexual relations among men are punishable by death. It would be easy to imagine that drow females, by comparison, have it much easier, but this is an illusion, and their prestigious position within society comes at a high cost. In fact, the teachings of Arakruth and the drive to gain more power over others makes competition between female drow, particularly those who belong to powerful houses, violently competitive in a way that males do not have to cope with. Matters are even worse for those who seek power through venues outside of Arakruth's church, where the females have to compete not only with one another but with resentful and oppressed males. Courting is the domain of dark elf women in drow society, trying to initiate a relationship is a reason for execution by torture and then sacrifice for a male drow. The standards applied for selection purpose by the females are reminiscent to those of selection of breeding animals. Furthermore once a relationship starts, the male partner is in no way an equal partner. He has no say in how long a relationship should last or whether it should even start. The woman on the other hand can switch between partners as she desires. When the drow man is desired by more than one female, the women are in competition to one another over the man, who normally isn’t safe from damage. A sign to clarify for a female drow in this situation that she has lost interest in the rivalry is to skin the male one and drop the corpse before the room of the other rival. Outside of the theological spheres, dark elves are ruled by their aristocracy - the Sharrat caste. The nobles are family groups who had the violence to take the position. Normally, a noble House is watched over by a priestess of Arakruth called a Matron Mother. They are generally founded by powerful drow individuals with special powers, who gave their traits to their offspring. Nobles also augment or substitute these abilities further with magic items. The Sharrat take the best lands and resources for themselves, and the rest are forced to care for themselves. The Houses own a standing army of drow soldiers (called the Fell Host), priestesses and warlocks. What is special about these armies of noble Houses is the existence of contingents consisting solely of non-drow slaves, usually goblins, grimlocks and Myconids. Noble drow families are groups who primarily banded together for mutual protection and not out of affection. Drow are generally raised by elder siblings and private caretakers but not by their parents whom they only rarely see, resulting in thin bonds between parents and children. Moreover drow parents are likely to sacrifice their children for some gain and infighting in a noble family is common and encouraged. Children remain at the side of their families because they are the one thing that keeps them safe from the violence that doesn’t originate from the parents and as adults because a family proves a good tool for societal advancement. Everdeep society is divided into castes. When a child is born, they are born to a caste, not a family. They are taken to be raised by the warlocks in the ways of Drow society. The castes are are as follows: Eshtar Caste This is the slave caste. Mostly populated by goblins, humans, deep gnomes and other races, members of this caste are born into slavery which they may never escape. They are untouchable, as their blood is impure and pathetic. As a rule of thumb, half to two-third of a given drow settlement’s population consisted of Eshtar. Puzur Caste The peasant caste. Most Deep Gnomes are of this caste. It consists of miners, servants, the common unskilled workers of the Everdeep. This caste is comparable to the serfs of Ederan and Illindorian feudal society. Puzurs cannot own slaves. Ningal Caste The merchant caste. Deep Gnomes and other races cannot exceed this class. Ningals are landowners, slave owners and merchants. Many of these are the dark elves who lead the slave caravans above land. Sharrat Caste The noble caste. Warriors, assassins, lords and ladies all come from the Sharrat caste. It is these drow who largely run Everdeep society, especially through the High Ruler who is usually female but may also be male if he proves particularly bloodthirsty. Male High Rulers have a short life expectancy. Irkazar Caste The warlock caste. Almost entirely female, the Irkazar run the religious cult of Narozanan and therefore the culture as a whole. They are the smallest caste and even the High Ruler must answer to this caste. Deep Gnomes Deep gnomes are wiry and lean with a body as hard as a slab of rock. Deep gnomes are a surly and cynical people, who fatalistically expect little more from life than what they have. Keeping themselves to themselves, being cautious when contacting other races and eying strangers with suspicion, it is hard to befriend a deep gnome, even if one is another deep gnome, but when taking considerable effort to befriend a svirfneblin (as they call themselves), one can find a loyal friend who will not easily misplace one's trust. Sullen and hard-working, deep gnomes are wholly dedicated to any task they set themselves on, typically mining for their drow overlords. Although outsiders find deep gnomes' overly serious attitude to make for sour company, those qualities make them tireless pursuers of excellence in their metalworkings and weapon forging. These attitudes are also justified in part by the harsh conditions of the deep gnomes, which require a degree of stoicism and quiet suffering in order to save the greatest number. Any sounds, including voices, can attract danger to deep gnome homes and for their own sakes deep gnomes have learned to keep a grim demeanor and low profile. Their seriousness and pessimism fades when admiring the gems which fascinate them so much. Although far more serious than most gnomes, deep gnomes nonetheless exhibit the same insatiable curiosity and craftiness if put under the right circumstances. It is this trait, more than any other, which leads deep gnomes to abandon their cautious upbringing and explore the world around them. Some of these wandering deep gnomes turn upwards, investigating the surface world from which their ancestors came. Artistically, deep gnomes prefer to use lots of gemstones, which are relatively common in svirfneblin communities, mined out of the veins along which drow cities are built and deep gnomes are some of the best jewelers in the world. Deep gnomes have also turned their cultivation of mushrooms for food into a wider industry, developing fungi not only for food but for textiles and wood as well. For their defense, deep gnomes most often design weapons that can be used for non-violent tools as well, with svirfneblin largely favoring the use of light picks, darts, or crossbows. Deep gnomes also often use specialized items as defensive weapons, such as poison darts and caltrops. The Cult of Arakruth The cult of Arakruth is obsessed with the idea of culling the weak. If those of weak blood, the slave-hearted or Eshtar-Mut, are pushed to the bottom of society or outright killed then the whole of society will thrive, allowing the strong to reach new heights of power. These teachings serve to amuse the Queen of Spiders (also known as The Poisonous Demon or the Demon Queen of the Deepweb Pits) who enjoys watching her followers slaughter each other in an eternal bloodbath of betrayal and pain. This culture also serves to shut down any opposing ideals or religions so that her absolute rule is maintained indefinitely. She Who Weaves rewards the most bloodthirsty and treacherous of her followers with greater power, and some of the Irkazar even become Driders, ferocious monsters resembling the dark queen herself. Arakruth's warlock-priests are almost exclusively female (although there are a few males). They represent the rulers of society, and strictly follow the Spider Queen's will, forcing the drow into extreme subservience to their deity, and into the constant state of conflict that dominates their lives. Each priestess strives for the favor of the Spider Queen and is ready to anything in order to gain status in her goddess' eyes. Their vestments are normally adorned with spider motifs. Her rituals require them to wear darker clothes or no clothing at all. Her clergy sacrifices the living and treasure for her glory. The words of one Arakruthite ritual have been converted to Valamari: "Great Goddess, Mother of the Dark, grant me the blood of my enemies for drink and their living hearts for meat. Grant me the screams of their young for song, grant me the helplessness of their males for my satisfaction, grant me the wealth of their houses for my bed. By this unworthy sacrifice I honor you, Queen of Spiders, and beseech of you the strength to destroy my foes."